The present invention relates to a translating apparatus of a conversation type in which a correct translation is fabricated in cooperation between an operator of the apparatus and the translating apparatus.
A prior art translating system is so designed that only one translated sentence is outputted with respect to an original sentence inputted into the translating apparatus for translation. For example, a translating system for translating an original sentence of the English language into the Japanese language will be described a little more in detail. Supposing that "He is one of the greatest figures of this century." in English is inputted, the fourth translated term in Japanese for the word "figure" is selected, according to the above system, among these of 1. numeral, 2. calculation, number, 3. appearance, countenance, style, 4. man, character, image, portrait, and 5. drawing, diagram, shape, form, through the analysis of the original sentence (analysis of structure of the sentence, analysis of meaning of the sentence, etc.). As a result, only one translated sentence, that is "He is one of the greatest men of this century." is outputted in Japanese.
In the meantime, with respect to an original English sentence, for example, "This rose smells sweet.", there are considered two kinds of Japanese translations, namely, (1) "The smell of this rose is sweet." and (2) "The fragrance of this rose is sweet.". In this connection, however, if the former Japanese translation "smell" is indicated first in the dictionary before the latter translation "fragrance", the system is so constructed as to output the former (1) translation.
As is described hereinabove, since the prior art system is of the construction that outputs only one translated sentence with respect to the inputted original, it is inconvenient that the outputted sentence cannot be easily corrected even in the case that "the greatest characters" is more suitable from the viewpoint of nuance that "the greatest men" in the above former example, and the (2) translation is better in the latter example.